‘How can we help our clients achieve personal or professional financial wellness?’ That was the simple question we asked ourselves when we set out to build Bridgewell Financial. As a concept, it helps constantly reorient our focus toward meeting your personal and professional financial needs. But it’s really about something bigger. As a firm, we set out to provide wealth and financial planning, group benefits and personal and corporate insurance solutions in a very different way.
That we would strive to deliver meaningful results goes without saying. Our real goal was to help you take a more holistic, deliberate and strategic approach to financial management that promotes total well-being and helps you achieve your lifestyle goals.
Since we launched our company in April, the support from clients and industry partners like you has been overwhelmingly positive. We’ve managed to build on some longstanding relationships, while developing exciting new client engagements along the way. We not only appreciate your partnership, but feel very fortunate that we have the opportunity to work with such dynamic organizations and individuals.
You’re the reason behind our success to date, and we can’t thank you enough for trusting Bridgewell to help meet your strategic financial, insurance and group benefits needs.
We also want to take this opportunity to wish you, your team and your family a happy and healthy holiday season. To say ‘thank you’ for your incredible support, we’ll be making a donation to Jack.org—an organization that provides mental health training services to youth across Canada—and the Daily Bread Food Bank on your behalf.
Now, let’s recap the year that was as we look forward to an even brighter 2022.
Driven to give back
One of our main goals when founding Bridgewell was to give back to the community whenever possible. Charitable giving isn’t only a passion among our team members, but we see it as our responsibility as a company to find meaningful ways to make a positive difference, any way we can. That’s why we continue to support organizations such as Jack.org. As a society, we’re beginning to fully understand just how important it is to provide mental health support to individuals, both personally and when professional stresses begin to mount. Jack.org is a good example of an organization that’s working at the grassroots to help the next generation improve long-term mental health outcomes.
We’ve also lent a hand to Youth Unlimited, a charity that provides mentoring to young Canadians in an effort to help enhance their lives using a holistic approach to physical, mental and spiritual well-being. Another organization we supported throughout the year is Dress for Success. They help women achieve economic independence by delivering support and professional development tools, while supplying their clients with professional attire they can use to put their best foot forward during job interviews. Dress for Success has achieved some remarkable results as they work to help women achieve their full potential. We’re pleased to continue offering them our support.
And only recently, our team came together to prepare care packages that will be handed out to members of Toronto’s homeless community over the holidays. The packages contain non-perishable food items, warm gloves and socks, hand sanitizer and masks and a Tim Hortons gift card. The idea came to us as we brainstormed ways to make a direct and immediate impact and brighten the days of some of our city’s most vulnerable residents. We look forward to sharing these packages and spreading a bit of cheer this festive season.
Growing our team
While we not only saw our client list expand during Bridgewell’s inaugural year, we also added some wonderful people to our team. The first was Jessica Thompson, who joined Bridgewell as a Client Service Coordinator. She’s responsible for helping to enhance our service experience and to ensure that our clients’ needs are met every step of the way. Her energy, passion and drive are an asset and we’re very happy to have her aboard.
Next was Amr Galal. Amr has been a long-time collaborator of ours on the group benefits side. A former sales team leader at Medcan, a corporate wellness and executive health care provider, his industry experience and expertise are second-to-none. Amr decided to join our team full-time as a Benefits and Savings Programs Consultant earlier this year. His contributions were immediate and we can’t wait to see how he helps fuel our growth in 2022.
Our latest hire is Jennifer Goles, our new Client Service Administrator. Jen is an experienced administrative assistant with extensive experience working in the health and wellness industry. Her communication skills are superb and her passion for wellness made her an obvious choice to fill this important role.
Extending the financial wellness conversation
One of our proudest accomplishments thus far is our work to enhance the discussion around total wellness. That could be promoting financial wellness by delivering effective financial and wealth planning solutions, or supporting mental and physical well-being through our group benefits practice. If we can continue that progress into 2022 and beyond, we’ll have taken another big step towards achieving our goal as a firm.
One way we’ll do it is by continuing to provide you with insights and expertise to grow your business or improve your personal financial wellness and performance. We’ve delivered ongoing thought leadership through informative blogs, while launching the Bridgewell Sessions to bring you the latest insights and expertise from industry leaders. Our first session looked at COVID-19’s impact on the workplace and how group benefits programs should be adapted to meet employees’ changing needs. Our next installment on February 16th, 2022, will look at business succession and the many tax, family and financial wellness considerations to keep in mind when exiting your business or transitioning it to the next generation. Stay tuned for more information in the New Year.
Of course, we’d be disingenuous if we didn’t live and breathe our wellness values internally. We’ve not only implemented policies such as half-day Fridays during summer and provided our team with paid time to volunteer with their favourite causes, we’ve also introduced initiatives such as Wednesday Wellness, where we come together virtually for a weekly yoga/stretching/meditation session to unwind and refocus. We’ll be building on those programs in the year to come.
In the meantime, we plan to raise a glass to you, to our team and to our families for making all of this possible. It’s been an exciting year and we look forward to all of the success that comes next.
The Bridgewell team
For assistance with your group benefits, wealth and financial planning, corporate or personal insurance needs, contact one of our partners today.
Please note that our office will be closed for the holidays on December 24th, 27th, 28th, 31st and January 3rd).
